Starring Christina’s heavy foot and my mumble jumble!

Brendan sent me a link to this. Super inspirational. Great video & fantastic audio design too.

I’ve just come back home from a 2 week trip to China and Hong Kong. I tried to update the blog in China but they block all Blogger blogs over there (Facebook Youtube and Flickr too!). When I got to Hong Kong I received a few messages to tell me that my blog was taken down. I couldn’t get to my email, nor could I log in to Blogger. I did some Googling and found that a lot of people out there have had their Blogger blogs deleted (!).

I started freaking out.

One of the first things I wanted to do when I walked in the door was check my email for a message from Blogger. It turns out they temporarily disabled my blog just to verify my account. I had to punch in my mobile number, they sent a verification number to my phone and I’ve not got my blog back. Frustrating? A little but hey it could have been worse!

PS: I got heaps of mail whilst I was away and none of it was from the Police so it looks like that Cop that was taking pictures of my car parked in a no standing zone a month ago might have been taking pics of it for personal use?!

PPS: Pics from the trip (which was exhausting!) will be up soon. :)

I was in China not too long ago (feels like last week!) and I’m off again. This time the Locks are taking me to the world expo in Shanghai. I have vague memories of the 88 Expo in Brisbane. It’s going to be hot and busy. Mr Lock is a big foodie so I’m looking forward to pigging out!

Well I’m off!

The guys came 2nd again in the 2010 Careflight Woodford to Glenbrook ride (sadly I didn’t enter this year). Check out the pics above, how awesome to the BMU jerseys look huh?!

More pics here: http://bikesmoveus.com.au/showthread.php?t=3368

We hit Koya last week for Charles‘ B’day. I’m a huge fan of anything BBQ, especially Korean or in this case Japanese all you can eat.

Suga and Di. Charles had a huge group of people and we pretty much took up the whole left side of the restaurant. Felix was on my table and at some point, the conversation turned to how Felix loses his eyesight when he gets hungry. Much much laughter!

Japanese BBQ FTW!

B’day boy Charles refused to drink (again!).

It wasn’t long before the Auto Salon shenannigans began. Zi and Papz went around to every person on every table with 2 glasses. Put cash into one glass and you get to put whatever you want into the other. Whoever consumes the glass with all the crap in it gets the cash.

It smelt worse than it looked, that’s because someone stuffed some tuna in there!

Zi gave it a go and gagged so much he had to stop. I hadn’t laughed so hard in ages. I was literally crying.

We then headed down to watch the Brazil vs. Portugal game live at Darling Harbour. Scrappy game so Suga and I headed off at half time.

Photos by Clifton.

Last night Christina and I (well, Christina as she did ALL of the planning!) held a huge Golf get together. One member offered up his warehouse, another member offered to cater the entire event (LeWrap, so so yum!). The generosity on tap by VWGolf.net.au members blows my socks off.

You can view many more photos and discussion here:
http://www.vwgolf.net.au/showthread.php?1438-VWgolf-net-au-WareHouse-Meet

Today I attended a Burrows Day at Eastern Creek.

Burrows Days have been held by Luke O’neill for years now. They’re invite only events and I’ve been to a few of them (maybe 6 or so days with various cars) but I hadn’t attended one in over 4-5 years.

They’re considered a driver training day (so people can get insurance to cover the day). There’s strict rules regarding overtaking and there’s no lap timing allowed. Awesome coffee is served all day, muffins, bottled water and a huge feast for lunch as well.

As soon as I turned into Reservoir Road it started raining. At that point I wished I had taken the GT-R instead of the Golf! The first 3 sessions were wet and I struggled to get any sort of grip at all (it was so slippery out there). The car would happily understeer for metres, the traction control did nothing about it (it only kicked in when I stabbed the accelerator and then the tail would pop out). I had a timer (don’t tell Luke!) and my times were woeful (I was doing 2.30’s to start and 2.18’s in the 3rd session).

During lunch the sun came out and our next few sessions were great!!!

I had my dampers set to 8 front and 12 rear and the car felt so much better than how it felt at Wakefield (set to 8/8). DSG behaved much better at EC, sometimes it didn’t want to get down into 3rd from 4th but that was about it. I even felt the rear wanting to come out in some situations. I had a lot of grip and best of all the brake bleed did the trick! My brakes were great!

I ended up with a lap time of 1.59 which I was pretty happy with.

I had a bad night’s sleep so I called it a day at 3.40pm and I’m glad I did as it started to rain again when I was leaving.

All in all a great day and god damn I love the GTI!!! It’s such a great little car and I’ve almost got it set up to my liking (more brakes would be nice!).

You can view all the pictures and commentary of the day here:
http://www.vwgolf.net.au/showthread.php?1427-Photos-Burrows-Day-at-Eastern-Creek

Weather was super nice yesterday, chilly but the sun was out so Christina and I hit Centennial Park for a few laps.

Doing laps of Centennial Park usually gets pretty boring but on a Sunday it’s as intense as a downhill trail! You’ve got kids weaving left and right, joggers and people walking dogs on the cycle path, sometimes the wrong way too, cars overtaking parking cars by swerving into the cycle lane and worst of all, Sydney yuppies staring you down and crossing the road at a snails pace (WTF is with that?!). /vent.

PS: I left the UNIbrace on and still managed to get 2 bikes in the back easily. I did have to take the front wheels off on both bikes though (easy done as they’re both quick release wheels).

20mm H&R bolt on spacers. Bolting on the spacers to the hub is easy as the right bolts are supplied but my aftermarket Kics Project wheel bolts were a tiny bit too long. Luckily the front OEM rotors have extra holes drilled out of them (no idea why) and this allowed me to use the longer aftermarket studs except one, which was blocked by a torx bolt that holds the disc. I had to grind that one bolt down 2mm to get it to fit but the end result is perfect!

The 2 pulleys, new and old. The Neuspeed kit weighs an amazing 1.39kg less than the stock one.

All installed.

Neuspeed says their kit gains 5-7HP. I can tell you 100% for sure that the car now has better response. That annoying tiny bit of lag when you accelerate with only half throttle is now a lot less annoying! VERY VERY HAPPY :)

Next up I wanted to get rid of the rubbing noises I’m getting from the rear. On close inspection I was really wearing away the carpet like fender lining in the wheel arch. I decided to rip it all out!

All ripped out. I took off the front brake heat/dust shields too for better brake cooling when I hit the track.

Here are my adjusted weight savings:

Lightening
———————————-
Antenna: -20g
Golf Manual: -818g
Tool kit: -3.78kg
Parcel tray: -1.82kg
Rear floor: -1.62kg
Rear seat bottom: -4.96kg
Rear single seat back: -6.46kg
Rear double seat back: -17.48kg
Spare wheel: -14.34kg
Rear wiper assembly: -1.02kg
License Plate surround + fog light block-off panel -300g
Rear floor matts: -572g
Osir carbon bonnet -6kg
Rear boot trim panel: -1.74kg
Rear boot trim: -2.57
Amplifier cover: -170g
Undertray: -880g
Exhaust heatshield: -560g
Oil filler neck -35g
Battery box -646g
Fog Lights -420g
Rear fender lining: -1.5kg
Front brake heat shields: -720g
———————————-
+10.80kg (H&R swaybars/Cross Coilovers)
-3kg (Miltek Turbo Back Exhaust)
-200g (Neuspeed Turbo Discharge kit)
+1.2kg (Forge Twintake)
– 12kg (Advan RZ + Toyo R888)
+395g (Kics lug nuts)
+1960g (H&R + ECS Wheel Spacers)
– 464g (new MKV rear hatch mechanism)
– 4.58kg (Odyssey Battery)
+ 400g (Unibrace)
– 1393g (Neuspeed pulley kit)
———————————-
= -73111g